You’re about to hear the Super Mario Bros. theme song as you’ve never heard it before: With lyrics penned by The Roots’ Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter.
That clip at right hails from last night’s episode of Late Night With Jimmy Fallon. It stars Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter (a member of The Roots, a seminal hip hop group that just so happens to be Fallon’s house band) and features the musician adding his own spin to the iconic Super Mario Bros. theme music – specifically, Trotter’s version includes words where the Koji Kondo original is merely a very beloved instrumental.
This is one of those cases where the entire story is in the clip, so watch that thing.
While I’m still utterly baffled as to why The Roots agreed to serve as house band on Fallon’s show – qualitatively, it’s like Public Enemy backing Carson in the late 80s, only with fewer oversized clocks – I’ve got to hand it to Trotter, those lyrics were surprisingly great. I’m hoping Nintendo sees this and … actually, scratch that. Let’s just take Trotter’s effort for what it is, without the need for anyone else to interfere. If Nintendo did build off of his lyrics it would just ruin whatever impromptu creative spirit went into those rhymes, and the whole thing would almost certainly look like a ham-handed attempt to appeal to the kids of today (or whatever stereotype Japanese developers have of modern “cool”). It’s best that we just enjoy this video, then move along before it’s corrupted somehow.
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Source: YouTube
